1963/4-three managers, one sensation

The 1963/64 playing staff as seen before the start of the season. 

Back Row: Tony Hawksworth, Tommy Kay*, Mick Collins, Dennis Emery, Jock Wallace.

Middle row: Reg Game (trainer), Reg Cornelius (secretary), Ronnie Southgate, Vernon Avis, Steve Miles, Roy Banham, Bobby Anderson, Malcolm Russell*, Albert Frost*, Bill Goundry, Alex Bain, Norman Cooley, Alex Buchanan*, John Fahy, Tony Sabey*, Reg Smith (manager), Joe Campbell (assistant trainer).

Front row: Charles Gallie and Gordon Bruce (directors), David Skinn, Ted Ashdown (chairman), Harry Collins (director), David Coney, Bill Manning and George Senior (directors).

On ground: Ron Heckman, Brian Wright, David Sturrock, David Lovell. 

* Reserve players who never made a first team appearance. 

The trophy on the left is the Bedfordshire Professional Cup and on the right the Metropolitan League Challenge Cup, both won in 1962/63. The identity of the small trophy in the centre is unknown.  

The 1963/4 season started with a 4-3 home win against Dartford on 24 August. Here visiting keeper Stubbs goes full stretch to beat Dennis Emery (right) watched by David Sturrock, but a defender deflected the ball into his own net for Bedford’s fourth goal. Emery, signed from Peterborough in the summer, had what was described as a “quiet” debut, but scored the third goal. Despite good weather the crowd was only 2,326, the smallest for an opening match for many years and two thousand down on the previous year’s opening day. 

Two more scenes from the Dartford match- (top) Ron Heckman slides the ball wide of Stubbs for the second goal, and (below) Emery tests the keeper. It was a creditable result for a team that had only nine fit men for much of the second half, after injuries to David Sturrock and Norman Cooley.  

The season started with two league wins but after a surprise home defeat by Stevenage, who had just joined the lower division, in the league cup the team hit a bad wobble. This culminated in 48 awful hours between 19 and 21 September, featuring home defeats by Guildford (1-7) and Yeovil (1-4). The Guildford result was the biggest home defeat since 1950 but the display against Yeovil was even worse, featuring a second-half collapse, before a crowd of only 1,900. After the Guildford match the club announced that Reg Smith had handed in his resignation. It was reported that he had in fact first given the club notice on 20 August, before the first league match, citing unspecified "differences of opinion", but that meanwhile the Board had been trying to make him change his mind. The timing of the release of this news could hardly have been worse, immediately after the worst home defeat for years, and many supporters assumed that it was the Guildford result that had triggered Smith's decision. In fact, it soon became clear that he had already decided to work permanently for Addington in South Africa, although he eventually agreed to stay until December. Exactly what had triggered his decision back in August was never explained; rumours persisted that it was related to Emery's signing, although the directors may have wanted Smith to curtail his summer coaching trips.

Before he left, however, Smith oversaw some significant changes. For the return match at Guildford the following week he brought back Fahy at centre-forward in place of Emery and gave a debut to Steve Miles, a waif-like but clever young outside-left from Kempston Rovers. The resulting forward line of Lovell, Sturrock, Fahy, Heckman and Miles soon looked better balanced, and Heckman, happier at inside-left than on the wing where his lack of pace was a problem, was the ideal experienced prompter for his much younger colleagues. Collins finally got preference over Banham at centre-half and Skinn took over at left-half. The return Guildford match was won 3-1-Miles scoring on his debut- and although the league form never threatened the leading positions it averted the worst predictions after the debacle of 19-21 September, and the younger locally born players were soon starting to attract attention from bigger clubs.

“Deep depression over The Eyrie” ran the Bedford Record’s headline to the report of this match, a 1-4 defeat by Yeovil on 21 September 1963.  It would have been bad enough in itself, but followed a horrible 1-7 home walloping by Guildford two evenings earlier, a night that ended with the announcement of Reg Smith’s resignation-although he did not leave until December. The Eagles were actually ahead in this match at half-time and still level after an hour, but then, as we see here,  David Coney (far right) and Jock Wallace got into a muddle over a back pass and the resulting own goal put Yeovil ahead, two more goals following soon afterwards. Only 1,900 turned up, an unprecedentedly low crowd for so early in the season. Also in this view are (left to right) Mick Collins, Roy Banham and David Sturrock. After this match Collins moved to centre-half to displace Banham, John Fahy and Steve Miles were brought into the attack. In the return match at Guildford 48 hours later, the team won 3-1 and results continued to improve, but Smith stuck to his decision to leave.

Exempt until the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup, Bedford met Cambridge City, the reigning Southern League champions,  at The Eyrie on 19th October in front of almost 5,700. When the visitors were two up after 65 minutes they appeared assured of progress into the competition proper, but David Sturrock scored twice –the equalizer coming with four minutes left-to secure a draw which effectively transformed the season. Nearly 8,000 saw the replay at Milton Road three days later in which Bedford went through 3-2. Here, John Fahy (second from right) has beaten goalkeeper Roy Jones, but the ball came back off the post. Ron Heckman (10) and David Lovell are the other Bedford players.

Exempted again until the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup, the team had now stabilised, but when Cambridge City were two ahead with 25 minutes left at The Eyrie little hope seemed to remain. Two goals by Sturrock, now a steady scorer from inside-right, took them to Milton Road for an exciting replay watched by nearly 8,000 where Fahy snatched a late winner to send Bedford through 3-2.  Two weeks later they survived a tough battle in the mud at Weymouth in the first round to come back from a second minute goal to draw 1-1 and Miles scored the only goal of the replay at The Eyrie on 21 November. There was some disappointment at a second away draw against familiar opposition in Chelmsford in the next round. Bedford had a poor record at Chelmsford , but they confounded the form-book with another 1-0 win, again with Miles getting the vital goal, before a 9,000 crowd at New Writtle Street, with both Wallace and Collins playing key roles. Now came a reward, at least financially, in the form of an away draw against Newcastle United in the third round. 

In the first round of the FA Cup on 16 November 1963 Bedford met Weymouth at the Recreation Ground in typically heavy conditions. Despite going a goal behind in the second minute, the defence, inspired by a string of saves from Wallace, held firm and four minutes from half-time John Fahy gained possession from a Heckman corner and is seen here driving the ball home past Weymouth keeper Bill Gourlay.  Weymouth were handicapped by an early injury to right-half Alan Wright, who was to join Bedford the following summer, and neither side could force a winner in the second half. 

Two more scenes from the Weymouth match-(top) Gourlay and Fahy in an aerial duel, and (below), David Sturrock bursts through the defence. Three days later a single goal, from Steve Miles, won the replay at The Eyrie, of which no photographs seem to survive, and Bedford had avenged their defeat by Weymouth at the same stage ten years earlier.

Photograph by kind permission of the Essex Chronicle.  

Jock Wallace, who was one of the best known names in non-league football at the time,  goes for a cross in the FA Cup second round tie with Chelmsford at New Writtle Street on 7 December 1963, which Bedford won 1-0 against the odds, watched by just over 9,000. Tony Butcher (9) is airborne for Chelmsford and the other Bedford players are Bobby Anderson (left), Steve Miles (in distance), who scored the goal in the ninth minute, and Mick Collins (5), who was playing against his old club. Wallace, the undoubted hero of the win at Newcastle in the next round, left for Hereford the following summer, on the way to a more distinguished career in management.

A few days before the Chelmsford tie, with Reg Smith having confirmed that he would leave on 19 December, the club announced not just one new appointment but two. First, Basil Hayward, manager of Yeovil who would end the season as League champions, was named as Smith's permanent successor on a three-year contract and a reputed salary of £40 a week (average earnings at the time were about £23) which was said to make him the best-paid manager in non-league football; but as Yeovil were also still in the FA Cup he would not start until they were out of it. Meanwhile, Tim Kelly, who had been out of football since leaving Hastings some 18 months earlier, was appointed caretaker-manager.

So just before Christmas Smith finally took his leave of the club, leaving them in mid-table, which was a considerably happier state of affairs than he had found them in two years earlier. Kelly's return allowed journalists to revisit the stories they had written eight years earlier about the luck of the Irish, and his obliging tendency to ham it up for the cameras with party pieces such as putting out bowls of titbits by the goalposts for leprechauns, but what real effect he had on the field is unclear. Nevertheless, the team remained unbeaten in the league throughout December (the attendance for Worcester’s visit at Christmas even crept above 3,000) and approached the Newcastle match with a happy and settled look. Kelly had to make one enforced change when Skinn was injured but there was a dependable replacement in Bobby Anderson, a tough Smith signing from Cowdenbeath who had deserved more than the few chances he’d had since arriving in the summer of 1962.

Bedford took three points out of four from their Christmas league matches against Worcester, and here in the 2-2 draw at The Eyrie on 28 December 1963, visiting keeper Keith Ball fields a high cross as John Fahy (right) advances, with David Lovell in the background. The other Worcester defenders, left to right, are Wood, Madley and Tierney (2). The holiday allowed the crowd to just squeeze past the 3,000 mark, for the last match before the Cup tie at Newcastle. 

  The programme cover and centrefold for the third round tie at St James's Park on 4 January 1964.

St James’s Park, 4 January 1964: Bedford’s captain, David Coney, shakes hands with Newcastle’s Stan Anderson-who scored their goal in the last few minutes- with referee Ernie Crawford looking on. 

In the early stages of the third round tie at St James’s Park, 4 January 1964: Newcastle centre forward Barrie Thomas challenges Jock Wallace, watched by Mick Collins (left) and David Coney. Newcastle could easily have scored three or four times in the first 20 minutes but Bedford weathered the storm. Note the straw lying around on the pitch, which had been covered to protect it from frost; in the dying seconds with Bedford winning 2-1, some desperate local youngsters started to throw the surplus straw around on the touchlines in an effort to have the match abandoned. 

At St James’s Park, 33,820 watch the opening exchanges of what was to become Bedford’s most spectacular cup success. Mick Collins tracks back against Newcastle’s Barrie Thomas, with Bobby Anderson watching (left) and David Coney partly hidden behind Collins. 

 Jock Wallace, whose performance did more than anything else to achieve such a remarkable result, takes a high ball under challenge from Newcastle’s Andy Penman, with Alan Suddick (11) looking on. David Lovell is back helping his goalkeeper and Ron Heckman is in the background, left.   

 Photograph by kind permission of ncjMedia Ltd

John Fahy celebrates as Newcastle full-back Bill McKinney (out of view) deflects David Lovell’s centre past grounded goalkeeper Gordon Marshall for Bedford’s second goal, three minutes before half-time, at St James’s Park. The toilet rolls wrapped around Marshall’s post are left over from Fahy’s opening goal 13 minutes earlier, a soaring header to meet Lovell’s centre, of which no photograph seems to survive.   

Photograph by kind permission of ncjMedia Ltd

John Fahy challenges Newcastle’s centre-half John McGrath, watched by goalkeeper Marshall, in the closing minutes. Jim Iley is the Newcastle player in the background. After Jock Wallace had made a series of heroic saves, he lost a contact lens in the muddy goalmouth and the delay caused by looking for it led to four minutes of stoppage time-a lot for those days-in which Stan Anderson finally beat him with a 20-yard shot, but the defence saw off Newcastle’s last desperate attacks. 

It was a very different type of team to the one that Kelly had chosen against Arsenal eight years earlier: every member of that team (average age just over 30) had appeared at some time or another in a Football League match, whereas the team that ran out at St James's Park included five men without a League appearance between them and had an average age of just over 25 (inflated by Heckman (34) and Goundry (30)).

Over three thousand Eagles supporters travelled north-eastwards on 4 January 1964, and as many of them had done in 1956 they spent much of the journey peering through thick fog, but again it had cleared by the end of the journey. Newcastle had been relegated to Division Two in 1960/1 and although they sat modestly in mid-table, the atmosphere at St James’s Park was still that of a big club, and 33,820 people made a decent crowd in what was then a very undeveloped ground, with tall open terraces at one end and along one touchline. For the first 20 minutes the home side completely dominated play and Bedford supporters assumed that they would see a convincing Newcastle win, merely hoping that the scoreline was kept respectable, but Wallace made the first of a string of excellent saves before Fahy rose elegantly to head Lovell’s cross into the bottom right hand corner of the net after half an hour. Few of us had recovered from the shock when full-back Bill McKinney deflected another Lovell cross into his own net just before half-time.

Newcastle ran into an almost impermeable barrier in the second half as Wallace made a series of brave aerial saves and Collins won most of his battles with their centre-forward Barrie Thomas, but Heckman was unlucky not to score on the hour when he hit the intersection of bar and post, and Miles would have surely done so if Fahy had played him in on goal when he was unmarked shortly afterwards. Injury time, normally no more than a minute or two in those days, went on and on, extended when Wallace lost a contact lens in the mud[1] and again when small boys threw straw over the touchlines, and home captain Stan Anderson finally beat Wallace low to his left in about the 94th minute, but somehow Bedford held out. Wallace was chaired off by his team-mates and both supporters’ special trains ran out of beer on the way home. For those of us who were too young to have been at Highbury eight years earlier, it was a magnificent day of our own to savour. Bedford had soaked up pressure well and scored their goals on the break; they had inevitable moments of luck but Newcastle’s players and supporters took their defeat with good grace. Interestingly, Joe Harvey, their manager, kept his job and was to lead them not only to promotion the following season but also the Fairs Cup (later the UEFA Cup) in 1968.

With the safety lights in the roof of the Long Shelter-switched on just before the floodlights went off at the end of a match- struggling to pierce the murk, you can almost feel the winter’s chill as John Fahy slides home a very late winner past Rugby’s goalkeeper Christie at The Eyie on 18 January 1964, between the Newcastle and Carlisle cup ties. His 87th minute effort, after Christie had failed to hold on to a shot from David Skinn (out of picture)  secured a 3-2 win after the visitors had put up a good fight, one of several modest teams who visibly raised their game against the giant-killers. Ron Heckman is tangling with the keeper and David Lovell is in the background. 

Tim Kelly is interviewed by David Coleman for BBC TV’s “Sportsview” before the Carlisle cup-tie in January 1964. Kelly, the most successful of the club’s managers in his tenure from 1955-59,  returned as caretaker-manager between the departure of Reg Smith and the arrival of Basil Hayward, and presided over the Newcastle victory. This was the interview in which he laid out saucers of milk for leprechauns by the goalposts.

A crucial moment in the 4th round FA Cup defeat against Carlisle at The Eyrie, 25 January 1964. With Bedford a goal down early in the second half, Ron Heckman is about to beat Carlisle goalkeeper Alan Ross (extreme left) and slide the ball into the net, only to see his effort disallowed for offside. Carlisle scored twice more to clinch their win.  

For the next three weeks Bedford occupied the sports pages of the tabloids and the London-based journalists wrote their customary patronising pieces about the gallant part-timers who had set the sleepy little town ablaze, etc, etc. While the players were being prepared by Tim Kelly for the home fourth round tie against Carlisle, Basil Hayward remained at Yeovil, even though they had been knocked out in the third round at home by Bury, saying that he didn't want to step on Kelly's toes while Bedford were still in the competition. With cigars and brandy still circulating in the boardroom after the Newcastle match his hefty salary may have seemed a good deal, especially since the club had now also agreed to sell Fahy to Oxford once the cup run ended for £2,500 (about £38,000 today), which more than covered the new manager’s annual salary. However, they declined alleged offers for Lovell and Miles.

The supporters tuned up with a stirring 3-2 win against Rugby in the league, featuring a last-gasp winner by Fahy which proved to be his last goal for the club[2]. A week later the attendance record was, naturally, broken as 17,858 squashed into The Eyrie to see Carlisle, who were among the leaders in Division Four but were otherwise a very unfamiliar proposition to spectators in the southern half of the country. However, they put on a professional display, marked Fahy and Heckman out of the game and gradually took control, taking the lead just before half-time and finishing Bedford off with two goals in quick succession in the second half. Heckman had a goal disallowed at 0-1 which might have made a difference, but in truth this was a moderate if courageous Bedford team that was unlikely to be under-estimated twice.

Carlisle’s Frank Kirkup (11) has just beaten Jock Wallace (on ground) to put his team a goal ahead just before half time in the January 1964 fourth round tie before a then record Eyrie crowd of 17,500. His centre forward Hugh McIlmoyle congratulates Kirkup, while Vernon Avis (in distance) and David Coney look glum. 

The Ford End Road gasometers can be seen behind the Long Shelter. 

 John Fahy bursts between Carlisle half backs Peter McConnell and Ron Thompson in the second half of the fourth round defeat. It was the final game of his first spell with the club as he was already committed to joining Oxford United as soon as the cup run ended. 

After their FA Cup exit, Bedford had a dreary run in the league in which they failed to score in five of their next seven matches. One of these was the goalless draw with Bath at The Eyrie on 8 February 1964. David Sturrock (left) has been beaten to this ball by Bath centre-half Ian Macfarlane and keeper Ray Drinkwater.  

The lack of goals forced Basil Hayward to look elsewhere for strikers and he decided to give a run at centre-forward to Norman Cooley, who had first appeared briefly in 1961/2 and again at the start of 1963/4, but had then been ignored by Reg Smith. Cooley responded with ten goals, including both in this 2-0 Good Friday win against Bexley United at The Eyrie. Here he goes one-to-one with Bexley’s keeper Tony Smith, watched by David Sturrock and Steve Miles to the right. Cooley was virtually a regular from then until the late 1970s, moving into midfield and finally into the defence, and meanwhile played cricket for Bedfordshire and the Minor Counties as a wicket-keeper/batsman.

After leading his “old” club to a 1-0 win at Yeovil against his new one the following week, Hayward took over. The mysterious Bain, invisible since August, was drafted in to replace Fahy but played a deep-lying game that immediately deprived the attack of any focus. Bedford failed to score in four of the next five league matches after the cup exit, forcing the new manager to discard Bain in favour of Norman Cooley, at that time a centre-forward, who obliged with a goal, the winner at home to Margate at the start of March, in what became the first match in an unbroken run of 14 seasons. Emery was also recalled for most of the rest of the season, replacing sometimes Lovell and sometimes Sturrock, as Hayward made only very minor changes to the team he’d inherited. 

The 1963/4 season petered out disappointingly after the excitements of the Cup run, but the final weeks saw Norman Cooley continue his run as an alternative striker. Here he takes on Merthyr goalkeeper Norton in the 1-1 draw at The Eyrie on 18 April 1964, with Dennis Emery following up. Emery, who had been seriously injured in a car accident in 1961, was never able to repeat the achievements of his Peterborough days but made useful contributions later on the coaching side.  

 Another scene from the Merthyr match sees Ron Heckman in a duel with the Welsh keeper, and Norman Cooley and Steve Miles in the background. Merthyr had declined a long way from the era in which they won the championship four seasons out of five between 1949 and 1954, and were relegated at the end of this season, but Bedford still failed to beat them at home or away. 

After the earlier FA Cup excitements, the disappointments of the league programme were forgotten again when Bedford retained the county Professional Cup and, a few weeks later, the Hunts Premier Cup. A crowd of 4,028, better than any attendance for a league fixture, turned up on 6 April 1964 to see virtually a first choice Luton side go down 0-2. Here David Sturrock drives home the first goal past veteran goalkeeper Ron Baynham from a cross by Miles. He added another in the second half.  

A happy afterglow from the FA Cup exploits still bathed the club at the end of the season, even though all there was to show was the retention of the Beds Professional Cup (with a 2-0 home win against Luton) and the Hunts Cup in which Cambridge City were beaten 3-2. But still not enough goals were being scored- although the total of 71 in the league was ten better than the year before- and there were some disappointing displays before poor crowds as the season petered out to an eighth place finish. Defeats by three of the relegated clubs-Hereford, Kettering and Hinckley-and two draws against the fourth, Merthyr, in the final month underlined the view of most supporters that the manager would need to make significant changes over the summer.

Despite the Cup highlights, which increased gate receipts from £11,500 to £14,265, and produced a profit on the season of £600 compared to a loss of £1600 in 1962/3, only three league gates had topped 3,000 and nine had failed to reach 2,000, with the average league crowd coming out at 2,202. The wage bill was running at around £17,500[3]. The contribution of the FA Cup run to the improved financial results was clear from the fact that season ticket sales had reduced by 30% from 1962/3. There was much work to be done.

To continue the story go to 1964/5 -Hayward bides his time

For full results and teams go to Results and teams, 1950-67

LEAGUE TABLES 1963-1964

 Premier Division

  1. Yeovil Town                          42  29   5   8   93   36   63

  2. Chelmsford City                   42  26   7   9   99   55   59

  3. Bath City                               42  24   9   9   88   51   57

  4. Guildford City                       42  21   9  12   90   55   51

  5. Romford                               42  20   9  13   71   58   49

  6. Hastings United                  42  20   8  14   75   61   48

  7. Weymouth                          42  20   7  15   65   53   47

  8. Bedford Town                   42  19   9  14   71   68   47

  9. Cambridge United              42  17   9  16   92   77   43

 10. Cambridge City                  42  17   9  16   76   70   43

 11. Wisbech Town                    42  17   8  17   64   68   42

 12. Bexley United                     42  16  10  16   70   77   42

 13. Dartford                              42  16   8  18   56   71   40

 14. Worcester City                    42  12  15  15   70   74   39

 15. Nuneaton Borough            42  15   8  19   58   61   38

 16. Rugby Town                        42  15   8  19   68   86   38

 17. Margate                               42  12  13  17   68   81   37

 18. Wellington Town                42  12   9  21   73   85   33

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 19. Merthyr Tydfil                     42  12   8  22   69  108   32

 20. Hereford United                  42  12   7  23   58   86   31

 21. Kettering Town                    42  10   5  27   49   89   25

 22. Hinckley Athletic                 42   7   6  29   51  104   20

First Division

  1. Folkestone Town                   42  28   7   7   82   38   63

  2. King’s Lynn                             42  28   5   9   94   44   61

  3. Cheltenham Town                42  25  10   7   92   49   60

  4. Tonbridge                               42  24  11   7   98   54   59

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  5. Corby Town                           42  24   7  11  114   56   55

  6. Stevenage Town                   42  21   6  15   70   59   48

  7. Ashford Town                       42  19   9  14   73   57   47

  8. Burton Albion                       42  19   8  15   76   70   46

  9. Poole Town                           42  17  11  14   75   61   45

 10. Dover                                    42  18   9  15   86   75   45

 11. Canterbury City                   42  16  12  14   66   66   44

 12. Crawley Town                      42  20   2  20   81   71   42

 13. Trowbridge Town               42  16   9  17   71   78   41

 14. Clacton Town                      42  19   1  22   76   88   39

 15. Gloucester City                   42  17   4  21   88   89   38

 16. Yiewsley                              42  15   8  19   63   77   38

 17. Sittingbourne                     42  15   8  19   52   70   38

 18. Ramsgate Athletic              42  13   9  20   57   55   35

 19. Tunbridge Wells Rangers  42  10   8  24   47   89   28

 20. Gravesend & Northfle      42   7   9  26   43   96   23

 21. Deal Town                          42   5   7  30   48  106   17

 22. Barry Town                         42   3   6  33   33  137   12

•  Clacton Town resigned at the end of the season, joining the Eastern Counties League, and were replaced by Wimbledon, who turned professional from the Isthmian League

• Yiewsley changed their name to Hillingdon Borough for 1964/5

[1] Though in an interview with a Scottish journalist some years later, Wallace said that he had got some sand stuck behind a lens and that in trying to loosen it he jammed it further into his eye, playing with impaired vision for the last 20 minutes (quoted in the Bedfordshire Times, 17 February 1978).

[2] Or the last in this spell, until he returned in 1967.

[3] Figures quoted in the Bedfordshire Times for 19 June 1964 were £17,230 for 1962/3 and £17,741 for 1963/4. This includes transfer fees (possibly net of fees received).